Operation Babylift (April 1975)

The airlift of children out of South Vietnam in the war's last weeks.

Children first

In early April 1975, President Gerald Ford announced an effort to fly orphaned and other children out of South Vietnam. Over the following weeks, more than two thousand children were flown to the United States, with others going to Australia, Canada, and Europe.

Tragedy

The first flight, on April 4, 1975, ended in disaster when a U.S. Air Force C-5A cargo plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Saigon. More than a hundred people were killed, many of them children. The airlift continued.

Legacy

Babylift children grew up across the United States. The operation remains debated, both for the lives it saved and for questions about whether all the children were truly orphans.